First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind {Level 4} by Jessie Wise includes six poems for children to memorization throughout the school year. I put together some simple printables for our children to hang on the wall while we were learning the poems and then refer back to throughout the year. These have been helpful to use for copywork exercises during our schooltime. Poems for FLL Year 4 include:

~ “Afternoon on a Hill” by Edna St. Vincent Millay

~ “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley

~ “How Doth...” by Lewis Carroll

~ “Learning to Read” by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

~ “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by William Butler Yeats ~ “The Height of the Ridiculous” by Oliver Wendell Holmes If you plan to use any of the earlier levels of First Language Lessons, I also have created poem printables for Levels 1 & 2 as well as Level 3 also.

Please feel free to print this pdf file for your own personal use. They were created

for private and non-profit use. Please do not sell or host these files anywhere else.

Created by Jolanthe @ http://homeschoolcreations.com

Afternoon on a Hill by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I will be the gladdest thing

Under the sun!

I will touch a hundred flowers

And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds

With quiet eyes,

Watch the wind bow down the grass,

And the grass rise.

And when the lights begin to show

Up from the town,

I will mark which must be mine,

And then start down!

Lesson 8 First Language Lessons Level 4

Created by Jolanthe @ http://homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com

“Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: „My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!‟ Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Lesson 16 First Language Lessons Level 4

Created by Jolanthe @ http://homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com

“How Doth...” by Lewis Carroll

How doth the little crocodile

Improve his shining tail,

And pour the waters of the Nile

On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin,

How neatly spreads his claws,

And welcomes little fishes in

With gently smiling jaws!

Lesson 27 First Language Lessons Level 4

Created by Jolanthe @ http://homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com

Learning to Read by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Very soon the Yankee teachers Came down and set up school; But, oh! How the Rebs did hate it, --- It was agin’ their rule. Our masters always tried to hide Book learning from our eyes: Knowledge didn’t agree with slavery --- ‘Twould make us all too wise. But some of us would try to steal A little from a book, And put the words together, And learn by hook or crook. I remember Uncle Caldwell, Who took pot liquor fat And greased the pages of his book, And hid it in his hat. And had his master ever seen The leaves upon his head, He’d had thought them greasy papers, But nothing to be read. And there was Mr. Turner’s Ben, Who heard the children spell, And picked the words right up by heart, And learned to read ‘em well.

Well, the Northern folks kept sending The Yankee teacher down; And they stood right up and helped us, Though the Rebs did sneer and frown. And I longed to read my Bible, For precious words it said; But when I begun to learn it, Folks just shook their heads, And said there is no use trying, Oh! Chloe, you’re too late; But as I was rising sixty, I had no time to wait. So I got a pair of glasses, And straight to work I went, And never stopped till I could read The hymns and Testament. Then I got a little cabin A place to call my own --- And I felt as independent As the queen upon her throne.

Lesson 40 First Language Lessons Level 4

Created by Jolanthe @ http://homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com

The Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:

Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear the lake water lapping with the low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

Lesson 53 First Language Lessons Level 4

Created by Jolanthe @ http://homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com

The Height of the Ridiculous by Oliver Wendell Holmes

I wrote some lines once in a time

In wondrous merry mood,

And thought, as usual, men would say

They were exceeding good.

They were so queer, so very queer,

I laughed as I would die;

Albeit in a sober way,

A sober man am I.

I called my servant, and he came;

How kind it was of him

To mind a slender man like me,

He of the mighty limb!

“These to the printer,” I exclaimed.

And in my humorous way,

I added (as a trifling jest),

“There’ll be the devil to pay.”

Lesson 66 First Language Lessons Level 4

Created by Jolanthe @ http://homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com

He took the paper, and I watched,

And saw him peep within;

At the first line he read, his face

Was all upon the grin.

He read the next; the grin grew broad,

And shot from ear to ear;

He read the third; a chuckling noise

I now began to hear.

The fourth; he broke into a roar;

The fifth; his waistband split;

The sixth; he burst five buttons off,

And tumbled in a fit.

Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye,

I watched that wretched man,

And since, I never dare to write

As funny as I can.